For a minute he just kept moving the stick around and then he said,
"What would be the use of telling you?"
"Because I've got a reason and I want to know," I said. Then all of a sudden I knew why he climbed up there. It was partly so he could see all around and be sure no one was coming.
"Well, why do you want to know?" he said.
"Because I'm a friend of Skinny's, that's why," I said. Then I just blurted out, "I might as well tell you because, anyway, you're smarter than I am. They found a key on Skinny."
He just said, "When?"
"To-day," I said, "and it's probably a key to one of the lockers in our house-boat. Besides, that fellow who nearly got drowned had about a couple of hundred dollars on him."
"Humph, I thought so," Winton said.
I said, "Why?"
"Oh, just because," he said. "The day he came over to try to buy a fishing-pole he had a roll as big as a cobblestone with him. I suspected he'd lose it some day and that somebody would get blamed."
"Nobody is getting blamed," I said.